Quote of the Day

2011-10-17T11:01:00.001-04:00

Quote of the Day: "That's not a sport, that's just hanging on."
What I'm reading: Size of Thoughts.

I went camping for the first time this weekend, with my daughter's girl scout troop. My goal was to wait it out until it was time to go home. In this, I accidentally discovered the true merit of camping, which is: accepting loss of control. Control is an illusion, and nothing carries this message home like camping.

Not realizing this at the time, I keep idly looking for the Thing That Makes Camping So Appealing. At first I thought it was

1) Sleeping outside, on the ground, in a tent. The fresh air! The owls! The novelty! But no. It's accepting the illusion of shelter amidst the reality of bears, skunks, and teenage boys in neighboring campsites.

2) Fire. The mesmerizing flames! The warmth! The smores! Yes, but also, eye-stabbing smoke, interminable wait for hot water/ cooked hot dogs/ or even just the flames. Constant poking, blowing, kindling gathering, paper crumpling required. You cannot actually start a fire until it is ready to start. I don't know where forest fires come from. The myth of Prometheus, obviously, was originally created to explain how you had to get fire directly from the gods if you wanted to eat before midnight.

3) Proximity to tourist attractions. That's actually a perk of camping. While other non-camping tourists are wasting time sleeping in and having automatic coffee maker coffee, campers have been up since dawn or whatever time the teenage boys were up, and are already in line at the ranger station. It is a small illusion of control that you groggily grab with smug satisfaction.

Whatever the secret is, I certainly returned home with a higher threshold for frustration and boredom. If I can camp without whining, I should be able to live in my home without it, too.

2011-10-10T15:29:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day:
What I'm reading:

So, I'm taking a sick day. A real one, where you stay in bed and drink ginger ale. Usually I just drag myself though my chores-- vacuum, clean bathrooms, straighten, fold laundry, etc, etc, while feverish and drippy-nosed and maybe slightly drooly if I have a sore throat and can't swallow.

But this time, I actually just lay down. I have to recommend this to you. I have slept in, watched 13 Going on 30 AND Charlie's Angels (the movie-- love it, it's the best movie ever), and surrendered all household tasks. I think I'm feeling better already.

2011-09-30T13:08:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "There's a fine line between folk art and tacky, and I'm not going to cross it."
What I'm reading: Just finished Wednesday Sisters, which was like The Help but with feminism instead of racism, and instead of white female typists, the women all fortuitously turn out to be great writers. I have my own thoughts about careers versus competence (I'll find the link to that post sometime) but I'm still glad I can have my own money and command the kind of universal respect from bank managers and appliance salesmen that any overlooked and easily dismissed undersized stay-at-home mother gets.

I'm cleaning everything in sight. In my mind I call it "cleaning everything not nailed down." Sometimes I just say to myself "Go the Distance," like that voice in Field of Dreams. Because, cleaning house is a lot like pro baseball, when it comes down to it. Except for the stunning absence of handsome young athletes, it's pretty much exactly the same.

Come on over! You have 12 hours before this gleamingness expires.

2011-09-15T08:52:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I'd like to put in my request for a giant squirrel head."

What I'm reading: Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams. I guess this fifth book in his trilogy came out while I was busy in high school or college or something because I didn't know it existed until I saw it in the local bookstore. I'm finding it rather gloomy. So I suppose the title is apt.

I haven't blogged in a while, because I still feel like I'm dropping my children off at prison every day.

My husband gave me the assignment of writing the weather report in the styles of various writers-- Tennessee Williams was his first request, because the newspaper used the word "sultry" to describe today's weater. He's not used to people so passionate about the weather that they use sexy words like "sultry" to describe humidity.

I, on the other hand, grew up with people so fascinated by weather that if someone were to predict a hot day, I might have to stop and check whether they meant temperature hot or Harrison Ford hot. (Harrison Ford is the indicator of hotness that my particular family member would have chosen. At one point during the late 80s, only the surface of the sun could have attained a 10 on that scale of Hotness.)

So, I wish you a cold front cooler than Zooey Deschanel and a weekend more beautiful than Angelina Jolie.

2011-08-18T17:06:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I'm going to search for wontons."
What I'm reading: Just finished Water Elementals by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. I liked it.

Christmas Eve comes more than once a year in my house. More like, seven times-- not the Jesus Mary part, but the staying up late making things special and ready the night before part. Last night was First Day of School Eve, the saddest of all days, and so the night before is most important, packing special lunches and snacks, writing encouraging notes with pictures to amuse, setting out clothes and backpacks, and preparing for special breakfasts in the morning. All this is to help take the sting out of returning to school, but for the kids, or myself, I'm not sure. I hate it when they go to school, because I know school is hard on them, and because I like having them around. Why didn't I play Legos and Barbies with them every day this summer?

Now I'm here, lonely and tired. I've gone straight from Christmas Eve to Christmas afternoon.

2011-08-09T13:37:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "How do you draw molten lava?"
What I'm reading: Just finished My Life as an Experiment, by AJ Jacobs, and Bossypants, by Tina Fey.

Why must August always bring dread? I keep a weekly list of things I dread, just so I don't have to have that lingering feeling of dread at the back of my mind that keeps me from being carefree and cheerful. In July I had just a couple things-- actually, just one thing, over and over, thank you ENT specialists looking out for my well-being-- but now I have a long, diverse list of things I dread. Plus half of them involve decisions, which I'm not good at, because I'm Aries-- impulsive and, actually, just impulsive-- but also I'm better at seeing all the possibilities than at recognizing the best one.

ARG. And don't even get me started on my children going back to school.

A long dread list is not a good way to start work on a humor book!

2011-07-21T11:34:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Don't go all Dad-Skype on me."
What I'm reading: Cloaked in Red, by Vivian Vande Velde

I like teenagers, liked them when I taught high school Latin, liked them even on the young end when I taught middle school. So I have been looking forward to when my children became teenagers. And indeed, my eldest daughter has a dry wit, and an interesting perspective. I like her observances on the world and the way people are, and the way she sees her place in it all.

The hard part, alas, is that part of this stage in development also involves a lot of frustration and loud volume. It's sometimes like being an opera, where everything that should be spoken, is sung. Only, instead of singing, it's all done in yelling. I'm trying to stick to the libretto, and not get caught up in the rest.

Clever Comeback Cards

2011-07-15T12:37:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "sweeping up into a three-legged dog."
What I'm reading: Math Power. A little dry for something intended to make math's fun apparent.

One of you, devoted readers (and you are the best, all four of you!), has kidded around with me about starting an alternative line of greeting cards, for unsolicited advice. I think there is a real and serious need for greeting cards that say that which is hard to say. Most greeting cards say all the easy stuff ("Happy birthday!" and "My condolences... I am so sorry for your loss" and the ever mysterious "Thank you") which leaves you with nothing personal to add. Then you have to think, pen hovering over the enormous space below the gold embossed sentiments, of something perfect to round off the easy part the card called dibs on first.

But forget that. That's peanuts to how truly polite people feel after encountering rudeness. You want to go back in time, now that you've finally thought up a perfect rejoinder for the crass or hypocritical. Couldn't we use our hindsight to create cards just for such moments? Such as, "What punishment did you decide on for what your son did to my daughter?" and "Would you like to think about my request for personal leave before or after you leave work early on Friday as usual?" and, for any occasion, "Wow, I can't believe you just said that." All in pretty flowing script, with friendly birds or squirrels, or beaches, or cartoon characters.

Then all you have to add is, "Love, Mary."

Lists

2011-07-13T14:58:00.007-04:00

Quote of the Day: "She gave us white eat?"
What I'm reading: Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation. Love it!

You might notice here to the right a lot of lists. There’s something irresistable about a list—fun to make, fun to read. None of that syntactic structure of subject and predicate, to slow down the information. This is probably why Powerpoint is so mysteriously and undeservedly popular.

One fun thing to do with lists is to jot a number of random nouns, and then a separate list of random adjectives, and then play with pairing them. That’s a lot of fun.

One unpublished writer I know made a list of the various dinners you can have that are actually all beef. Try it!

Then there’s a better-known writer, Charles Dickens, who made a famous list about the various contrasting facets of revolutionary France.

But the pedigree of the list goes back farther than that, to ancient civilizations whose first use of written language appears to be for what the king owns, what his people owe him: symbols for cattle, grain, man, woman.

Look, and here I’ve done it all wrong. Starting over:

Lists:

fun
random items to pair randomly
lack of syntax
alternate names for beef
Tale of Two Cities
Linear B

Other popular lists:

Ten Commandments
David Letterman's Top Ten Lists
Quote of the Day source tally-- to be updated. Lists can be very important.

2011-07-11T15:41:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I'm housekeeping with my mouth."
What I'm reading: Damsel in Distress, by PG Wodehouse

I've been looking at a lot of pictures of kitchens lately, trying to decide on light fixtures, countertops etc. etc. I found one picture that at first was really cute-- an Aga stove, painted wood ceiling and walls, quirky open shelving-- until I counted, in this one little corner kitchen, THREE roosters! One ceramic painted rooster hogged precious counter space; one rooster adorned a kitchen towel; and one rooster strutted ornamentally on the rug.

People, I do not understand the kitchen rooster. Nor do I like it. It's worse when the fowl wear clothes-- the duck in a bonnet, the hen with an apron. Who needs this hackneyed country shorthand? I know, I feel like Mr. Gradgrind in Hard Times, who says flowers shouldn't go on carpets, because it is sentimental and illogical. Still, I say, if you want country, go with the gingham curtains and keep it charming.

Is there an analogous decorative item in an ultramodern kitchen? I doubt it would make me feel as dirty as I did after liking a picture of a kitchen revealed to have roosters.

2011-07-09T09:35:00.003-04:00

Quote of Day: "You had me at rectangular."
What I'm reading: Tale of Two Castles

My elder daughter is home from a life-changing time at camp. Adjusting to dull life at home has been hard for her, and while she remains the sweet girl she has always been, she has shown flashes of developmentally appropriate frustration with us, and me in particular. Just classic stuff, but I noticed today a veterinarian practice with widely separated entrances for dogs and cats. And I thought, maybe the family practice center should have widely separate entrances for mothers and teens. Or at least for the ones who fight like cats and dogs.

2011-07-06T11:53:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "The only emotion she shows is her hair."
What I'm reading: Just finished Penderwicks at Point Mouette , and am about to start Gail Carson Levine's new book, Tale of Two Castles.

July has settled in. The novelty of freedom has worn off, leaving only petulance and chores. Plus we might be the only people not at the beach. Town is deliciously empty! At this point in summer I usually would start a sewing or art project with the kids, but since what I'm supposed to do is clear out stuff for packing, I have to devote all my free time to procrastinating. It's exhausting. Somebody bring me another Izze on ice.

2011-06-23T10:33:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "We have survived an Alchemy of our living space."
What I'm reading: Red Clay, Blue Cadillac.

Last weekend my younger daughter and I found a whole bunch of lucky pennies out in town, heads up and everything. We pocketed them, ready for an extra dose of good luck. I'm not even sure what kind of great stroke of luck I would hope for. She would first hope for world peace. That what she always wishes-- as a middle child, she must find the idea of global harmony particularly elusive and desirable. After that, maybe new art supplies, or her own pool. As for me, I cannot quite hope for the kind of massive good luck it would take at this point to get a publishable novel written. An instant home renovation seems more likely than that.

We came home to find visitors, a family our eldest daughter knew a few years ago in elementary school. They were back from an out-of-state move, out of money and out of a home. The mother was in the midst of driving around town applying for food stamps and jobs, and came by hoping we could help. So we are trying, while searching the boundaries of what is right, and what is wise. I guess those pennies were not for how much luck we were going to get, but a reminder of how lucky we already are.

2011-06-19T20:53:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Watch out for the dew."
What I'm reading: Red Clay, Blue Cadillac, still.

A week of VBS had me thinking about popular Biblical characters-- David, with his slingshot; Jonah, in the whale; beautiful queen Esther. But my favorite character that isn't the Lord, is Joseph.

Was it Dave Barry, or David Sedaris, who points out that in Christmas pageants no boy wants to play the role of Joseph? They all want to be shepherds. But Joseph is the real hero. He is steadfast and loyal, and crucial. Without Joseph, Jesus can't trace his lineage back to David, right? Not to mention growing up faithful.

I have myself a wonderful, steadfast stepfather. From him I learned about hard work, doing one's best-- to the point of perfection, which only my stepfather achieves-- and kindness. And lots of other stuff, too. That my mother had the wisdom and good fortune to marry him, surely, was Providential.

Fights

2011-06-18T10:38:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "It's either just fruit, or cupcakes and liquor."
What I'm reading: Red Clay, Blue Cadillac, by Michael Malone. Short stories, but so much better to read than Jane Gardam's Faith Fox which has a loose writing style I can barely stand.

Vacation Church School brings together elementary-aged children, high-powered mothers, and gentle minister fathers to decorate dreidels and sing mind-sticking songs about the brighter aspects of Jesus.

They’re fight songs for the conflict between the abstract ideals of heaven and happiness and salvation, and the reality of little boys kicking and wrestling, of dripping paintbrushes and scattered beads, of clammy sunscreen and bug screen. In between they must form lines and pass snacks and write names on masking tape. What could be more temporal than this discomfort and tedium and enforced joviality?

The women compete and compliment, and some jests misfire into insult. Diplomacy replaces goodwill as everyone labors to pull off a better camp than last year, the best camp ever, the one camp that will set the model for every camp thereafter. It’s part Christian community, part Herod’s wedding, and the children, sheep, herded from one verdant field to another, both the whole point of the thing, and entirely beside it.

Was Jesus my personal savior then? Or was I in the desert for 5 days?

2011-05-24T08:36:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "We have couple's scratch paper."
What I'm reading: more Michael Malone. After attending a children's author talk, I now wish I'd asked Michael Malone, at any of his talks I've attended, where he came up with names, or whether he knew anyone like his characters.

Does it strike you, like it did me, suddenly last weekend, that fancy ringtones are kind of like cute answering machine messages were back in the 80s?

In theory, individualized ring tones prevent pandephonium, that momentary widespread uncertainty of whose phone is ringing. But in practice, isn't it just a little weird when Usher starts calling out from the handbag of a middle-aged woman? or Dancing Queen, from a politician's phone?

We need some kind of modest solution, some individualized but fairly bland cellphone ring. Like a butler clearing his throat, or my children saying, "Mom? Mom. Mom?" Ha! You know how parents supposedly can distinguish their own child's cry from other babies'? Maybe it could be something like that. I think it was Ray Bradbury who wrote about a creature in a home that the people ignore, for hours, until it cries, and then they run to pick it up, cradle it next to their faces, and croon softly to it. So, maybe your phone isn't like your child, but aren't you extra pleased when it's a Smart phone?

In any case, no one likes a show-off, a precocious, precious phone. I'll just set mine to chime.

2011-05-10T11:24:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Go back to baking."
It's one of those rare, inspiring QOTDs, a quote to set your heart at rest.

What I'm baking: cinnamon rolls! Had to go back and knead in the forgotten salt, so who knows how it'll turn out. A cliff hanger!

2011-05-05T11:15:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I have to play nice at the VBS-kick off." I like the combination of connotations here-- playing nice, Vacation Bible School, kicking... it just appealed to me.

What I'm reading: Handling Sin.
What I'm supposed to be reading: Johnny Got His Gun. I went to a teacher conference and for the first time came away with a reading list. I'm not sure I don't have to write the paper for it. So much for taking the upper hand and being in charge etc., etc. Moreover, she practically advocated for my kid more than I did-- she all but grabbed my collar and screamed, You idiot, your kid's really smart.

So let her read this depressing, important American work of literature! I'm off to play Sims.

2011-05-02T17:53:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Gazumped by gardeners!"
What I'm reading: Handling Sin (again. SO funny and good.)

2011-04-07T09:33:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day:

Our new plumbing investments may have included a giant, home-installed tuning fork. The whole house hums violently when anyone turns on the water. I haven't checked if it's A yet.

2011-04-06T17:28:00.006-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Can I put you down then for twenty sheep beans?"
What I'm reading: The Breakfast Book

I'm happy to report we have hot water again. After two days of boiling water to wash dishes by hand, I found myself driving a bin of dirty dishes and glasses over to the rental house, with a basket of laundry in the backseat. As the car clinked and rattled around turns and over speed bumps, I wondered if it was such a good idea.

When I was little-- five, at most-- I got a present of a set of glass miniature cats. My dad was at our house for some reason, watching football and drinking Budweiser. I lost interest, and decided to take my glass kitties-- so cute! so pretty! so little!-- for a ride in the basket of my bicycle, down the uneven sidewalk squares of my street. It turned out to be a bad idea.

You can see where I'm headed with this: I found myself wondering if these dishes and glasses were going to end up broken and chipped without their ears and tails.

The plates and glasses are still over there, clean in the dishwasher. So far so good.

2011-03-31T09:08:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I have never been so mean with my glare."

What I'm reading: Just re-read So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (awesome, of course) and the occasional story from the Blue Fairy Book. Fairy stories are fantastically weird. I like wondering which were actually druid rites encoded in story. The druids were maybe not overly sentimental about heads remaining attached to necks.

It is a cold, rainy spring break, conducive to baking muffins, whoopie pies, oven-fried chicken, and biscuits. The children pursue their hobbies-- computer games, fighting, whining-- and the husband continues on as an independent satellite.

Since my life seems to go in three year cycles-- the post-graduation slump phase, the aerobics instructor phase, the Latin teacher phase-- I might be baking for longer than I thought. Come on over and have a muffin! or a whoopie pie. We have 22 left.

2011-03-19T14:24:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Should I re-steal the baskets?"
What I'm reading: Myths of Peredur

The downside of green as one's favorite color is that maybe more than half of one's clothes are green, and then on St.Patrick's Day, one might feel more spirited than a kindergarten teacher except for her green-sprayed hair. So, sad times for me at the elementary school pick-up circle.

2011-03-16T13:23:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I thought I'd go spirited."

What I'm reading: Medieval myths: Peredur

I'm pleased to announce that I am not neglecting my child's cultural education. Sure, earlier attempts to increase her appreciation of classical music, needlework, and art have all roundly failed. But last weekend, while tackling some of the more tedious of her school makeup work, I found an opportunity to reach her, to expand her awareness and deepen her understanding of our culture.

She turned on her Pandora station called "Lady Gaga," and the first song was Fashion. Not 90 seconds into the song, I'm like, This is just Madonna's Vogue, especially this listing part here. So she's all like, what? I've never heard a Madonna song. So then I was like, Well, watch this. And we agreed that Vogue indeed shared characteristics with Fashion. Then we compared it to Britney Spears's Lucky, which on a lot of levels was terribly interesting, but then my daughter brought up Ke$ha and Pink-- would their rebellion save them? or not? And did Madonna share any of Lady Gaga's apparent irony or satire?

While it wasn't exactly Masterpiece Theatre, or even Mystery Science Theater, it felt right. Up until recently, her knowledge of the Carter Family and They Might Be Giants exceeded her literacy in modern music. We have a lot left to cover, of course-- the folk movement, the heavy-metal/ soft rock split of the 70s, and so much more-- but Lady Gaga is a good place to start.

"Gather ye together"

2011-03-02T08:40:00.005-05:00

Quote of the Day: "It's hell being a cat-hoarder."
What I'm reading: Fire and Hemlock, again.

Now that my eldest is out of the hospital, on some kind of self-directed treatment of rest, orange juice, and reality television shows, I can breathe a sigh of relief and write the blog post I've had in mind for over a week. Since a week ago Sunday, in fact, when I gate-crashed a church committee meeting.

Sunday morning before church, the VBS chair asked if I was going to attend the children's ministries meeting that evening. She needed some materials from me, and asked me to bring them then.

No one had said I needed to go, but I said sure. I'm not afraid of meetings. That afternoon, I left my ailing but not yet pneumonic child and hurried to the meeting.

I bustled into the Garden Room, clipboard and envelope in hand, ten minutes late, where of course the meeting was well under way. Two women kindly made room for me as I unfolded a chair and sat down. No one handed me a copy of the agenda they were reviewing. I noticed there were no extra chairs. There were no extra copies. And every powerhouse organized, decision-making, policy-shaping woman from our congregation was there. Plus me, the one who doesn't like to tell people what to do. It dawned on me that, on so many levels, I was definitely not supposed to be there.

So I sat and tried to be invisible for the next hour. But you know what happens when you gate-crash a church committee meeting: you are enlisted. Now I am the newest member of the children's ministries committee. God help me.

2011-01-28T09:05:00.009-05:00

Quote of the Day: "I know goats with other interests."
What I'm reading: Cookwise

Nick and Gina, Part 6

Today's Genre: French Textbook Dialogue. Our characters, Nick, the punk rocker, and Gina, the foodie, find themselves trapped in a level one French textbook.

Unit 3, Lecon 1: Former Les Questions

Gina: Salut, Nicolas! Est-ce que tu veux une baguette?

Nicolas: Hell, no, Gina. Cut that out.

Gina: Zut, mon cher! Est-ce que tu n' aimes pas mangere des baguettes?

Nicolas: You know perfectly well, my idea of dinner is something cold on the rocks. Like more rocks.

Gina: Quelle horreur! Est-ce que tu aimes jouer au tennis?

Nicolas: Why are you being so weird? Are you practicing asking questions or what?

Gina: Ou est-ce que tu aimes faire du ski?

Nicolas: Um, Gina, you know I don't do anything that requires a) rules or b) equipment.

Gina: O la la, tiens, est-ce que tu preferes jouer de la guitar?

Nicolas: This is absurd. I've got a piercing appointment in half an hour.

Gina: Ah! Est-ce que tu as un tatouage?

Nicolas: Are you going to say "a skull with wings" in French now?

Gina: Ah, non. Je ne vais pas poser des questions. Je vais manger cettes baguettes!

Nicolas: Well, this has been weird. And I like weird. Gina, you're my girl.

Nick and Gina, Part 5

2010-12-20T07:44:00.005-05:00

Quote of the Day: "I wish I had a bear."

What I'm reading: Chapel Hill in Plain Sight, Daphne Athas

Nick and Gina, Part 5: Western

Gina, washing up the tin plates from supper, saw the dust rising from the road a quarter of a mile away. "Company's comin'," she said to herself as she dried her hands on her apron. All the ranch hands were back at work in the fields, and Gina was alone. Could be friendly visitors, in which case she had fresh johnny cakes and hot water for coffee. But if it was McKean and his men again, she would be ready for them too, and she slid the three bullets from behind the coffee grinder and pulled the big rifle down from over the fire. She loaded it, and stood it just out of sight behind her. She'd never sell her land to the railroad.

With relief she saw the rider come into view: Nick, the metal studs along the band of his black cowboy hat glinting in the Dakota sun. He swung carelessly off his horse as she hurried out to meet him. He swept off his hat when he saw her, releasing the blue spikes of hair he wore in defiance of the white man. The Sioux in these parts respected Nick for being part Indian, even if he was New York Mohawk, not Great Plains Indian.

"Oh, Nick," Gina said, "I was afraid you were McKean and his men."

Nick pushed his black sleeves up to his elbow, revealing the skull with wings tattoo he'd had ever since he deserted from the Union Army. "I met with them in town," he said.

Gina grabbed his arm. "Nick, what did you do? Oh, Nick, you'll get yourself killed!"

Nick removed her hand from his arm. "It's not death I'm afraid of." He looked off toward Mexico, and freedom. "When Indian Joe wouldn't sell his ranch, they shot him like a dog in the middle of the street. Strange thing is, no one saw it. Town full of people, and no witnesses." He studied his black heavy boots. "Gina, it's anarchy out here, and that's how I like it. But I have to head south for a while, until things blow over. You won't have to worry about McKean and his men."

Gina looked up at him, dry eyed and brave. "There will always be McKeans, Nick. It's just a matter of time. But I can handle them. I have my rifle, and my baking."

Nick gently punched her chin. "Gina, you're a brick. You know I step aside for no one. But sooner or later you must answer for every good deed. So I'll go to Mexico, but I'll return."

He swung up onto his horse and put his hat back on his head. He nodded to her as his horse pawed the air and neighed, and they galloped, first into the setting sun, until Nick realized he needed to head south, and turned toward the darkest part of the horizon.

Nick and Gina, Part 4

2010-12-14T08:38:00.009-05:00

Quote of the Day: "I am totally unprepared for the total eclipse of the moon."

Nick and Gina: Today's genre #4 Science Fiction

Nick stood leaning over the console, pondering the blinking lights and gauges. Collision with the black hole seemed imminent, if only he could figure out a way to escape the gravitational pull already drawing the starship, with its one thousand uniformed yet oddly unhelpful crew members, to its tragic density of nothingness.

The doors opened with an efficient whisper, and the captain entered the room. As usual his eyes traveled from Nick's blue uniform up to the peaks of his blue mohawk. Nick knew the captain dared not say anything. Each peak was exactly within Class A uniform code, as were his face and neck piercings. Plus, it was always Nick's nerve, not all the skill of the rest of the crew combined, that got them out of dangerous situations, time and again. "Report," the captain said.

Nick indicated the panel of lights and buttons. "Bollocks your report," Nick said. "I've got to get us out of the mess our chief navigator got us into."

The captain winced. Of all times for the navigator to forget to carry the one. "Then get us out of here, Nick, or your punk hide will be doomed like the rest of us."

"True," said Nick, "but lucky for you, doom doesn't faze me." One of the red lights began flashing and beeping. "Hold on," Nick said. He stared at the gauges. It couldn't be true. He checked. "It looks like we're changing course."

"How?" said the captain. "Our engines are at maximum. Nick, you pulled it off again?"

Nick shook his head, setting his earrings jingling. "No," he admitted. "I can't understand it."

His viewscreen clicked on, and Gina's face appeared. "Hi, sweetie! How are things on the ship?"

"Well, Gina, we may be facing complete annihilation within a black hole. How are things on the space station?"

Gina giggled and held up a plate of biscuits and gravy. "I guess you won't be needing these, then. Too bad. I just made them."

Nick grabbed the back of his chair for support. "Gina! Those aren't your mother's recipe?!"

Gina scowled. "Nick, don't you dare start. Mother's biscuits are famous on Omicron 2 Eridani."

Nick shut off the intercom. "There you have it, captain. Gina's biscuits save the day."

The captain looked at him, puzzled. "No offense, lieutenant, but her biscuits are like rocks."

Nick grinned. "And they have a density factor just strong enough to save our punk hides."

Nick and Gina, Part 3

2010-12-09T08:53:00.014-05:00

Quote of the Day: tba

Nick and Gina continue--
Today's genre: Picture Book

Nick and Gina's 1-2-3

1 is the couple who never grows dull

2 are the wings on each side of a skull
3 are the piercings that dangle and shine

4 are the cupcakes, tender and fine

5 is for pasties, with cheddar and ham

6 are the scones served with butter and jam

7 are aprons, for each day of the week

8 is for every blue mohawk peak
9 are the metal studs glinting away,

10 different genres, one for each day.

Nick and Gina, Part 2

2010-12-08T09:30:00.006-05:00

Quote of the Day:

What I'm reading: Pies and Prejudice.

Continuing a series featuring my two characters, Nick and Gina, in a different genre every day.
Genre #2: Thriller

Gina stepped out of the dusty Jeep and wiped her sweating brow with the back of her hand. "They're up there, all right. Three operatives, type 81 assault rifles, just over the ridge."

Nick chewed his lip piercing thoughtfully. Nothing ever seemed to shake his calm. "Chinese support, then," he murmured, "and tactics." He checked the safety on his Glock and tucked it into his right Doc Martens boot. "You stay here by the radio. In case the General calls. Tell him to hold off the helicopters until I give the signal."

Gina grabbed his arm, just above the skull with wings tattoo he got just for her. "Nick, you can't go up there alone. You aren't trained for this type of danger."

Nick removed her hand. "I'm punk, Gina. I don't need skill. I have nerve."

Gina blinked back tears and pulled away. She turned her backpack to search through it, and pulled out some ham pasties and a biscuit. "Take these."

Nick took the food and tucked it into his leather jacket. Gina's food meant everything to her, even though he'd break a tooth if he tried to eat them. "I'll wear them next to my heart," he said. And he meant it.

Nick and Gina, Part 1

2010-12-07T08:23:00.006-05:00

Quote of the Day: "I hope I get an A on my penguins."

What I'm reading: It's December, and for me, winter means chocolate chip cookies and the complete works of Jane Austen. I'll start with Persuasion, since Anne is a little like Ophelia, obeying her father to her own detriment.

This week, I will write a story every day featuring two characters, Gina and Nick. Today's genre #1: Romantic Horror.

Gina nibbled her finger tip as she contemplated her cupcakes-- not really nibbling, of course. As a vampire, she might crave human flesh, but certainly not her own. She smoothed the front of her ruffled apron. It had been a challenge to create icing from butter, cream, and blood, but she was rather pleased with the results, particularly the tiny fangs on the little brown bats. Still, something was missing. Before she could figure it out, she heard the front door open, and footsteps in the hall toward the kitchen. She knew those footsteps, and her heart started racing. Then, there he was. Nick, his 6'2" frame filling the doorway, his spiked hair brushing the lintel. She sighed.

"You shouldn't be here," she said, pressing her hands down on the granite counter top as if to resist his magnetic attraction. "I'm baking."

"I know," he answered in his gruff voice. He was wearing his best t-shirt, the black one with the skull with wings. The metal studs on his wrist bracelet glinted as he rested his hand casually on the wall. He hoped she would notice.

He was so thin. His face was gaunt, his torso lean. How she longed to feed him cupcakes, scones, cheesecake. She tried to force the thought away-- between the wheat allergy and heroin chic, he would never eat.

In two strides of his long legs, he was next to her, his arms around her. "I can't help it," he whispered. "You smell like flours."

2010-12-03T07:57:00.003-05:00

Quote of the Day: "It's like regular 3D without the adjective."

What I'm reading: Dear Pen Pal, still. At three pages a night, I'm not exactly whipping through this book.

It's December, and winter has returned to my bedroom, which is now cool enough to store wine in. Or even milk and eggs. For someone who finds 60 degrees awkward to dress for (sweater? vest? short sleeves?), 53 degrees inside is a curious kind of challenge.

2010-12-02T13:30:00.006-05:00

Quote of the Day: “I got a lot of mental throat-clearing done.”

What I'm reading: Dear Pen Pal. Good, but the Southern character has twice used "y'all" incorrectly--ie., to one person.

BTW, for Reader 3, here are some pictures of the Steak House Kitchen mentioned in a previous post.

and

Not So Tragic: All's Well that Ends Well

2010-11-16T08:42:00.006-05:00

Quote of the Day: I got to start writing these down. (Readers 1 and 2: remind me what you said when I replied, "Quote of the Day!")

What I am reading: Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, by Martin Millar. I like this writer. He accomplishes some subtle things with apparently simple language.

Yesterday, I was trying to make a breakfast danish for my children, and it was turning out more difficult than I even expected, for out of the fourteen different steps required for this pastry, at least one crucial step was missing. I called my mother beforehand, to make sure I had her recipe correctly, and she did not mention the missing crucial step. Though a scientist, she is oddly sometimes inaccurate like that.

There I was, faced with a dough with costly exotic ingredients like sour cream, and no sure way to get from step 10 to step 12 successfully. Even cursing my mother's insufficient instructions could not save me. In the end I angrily stretched and pulled at what I had before me, left it to rise and shoved it in the oven. Like maybe the baking fairies would transform it into a braided danish while I wasn't looking.

Here's a picture of what I got-- something that looks like a half-gutted animal, something so hideous I could not bear thinking of eating it. That's what disgusting means: it puts you off eating.

It wasn't so much a danish as a disaster, a tragic, hideous disaster. So we call them Hamlets. And they're quite tasty, if we don't look while we eat.

Cooking up Discontent

2010-11-04T12:49:00.006-04:00

Quote of the Day: "They were not impressed by my fake children."

What I'm reading: Just finished a young adult book that used stereotyped characters and ripped off Harry Potter, Mysterious Benedict Society, and the Incredibles. Plus a ton of short-cut writing like, "He looked unconvinced," or "The look on her face showed she was mad." What kind of hell writing is that? But it was easy to read the whole thing.

Instead of writing, myself, I've been looking at pictures of kitchens, trying to have an opinion about sinks and countertops and cabinets. I kind of think we should just get laminate and oak and spend the extra money on new HVAC stuff. But my husband wants an undermounted sink, which means stone or quartz or acrylic or something expensive.

Ninety percent of the kitchen pictures are created by cabinet designers, I guess: the Steak Restaurant kitchen, the Italian Palazzo kitchen, and the County Rustic kitchen with fake ivy and wire baskets full of eggs. I hate these kitchens. The ones I do like are either "before" shots of kitchen makeovers, or non-existent kitchens. Here's one with quirky appeal that turns out to be a literal work of art:
Literally, that whole picture was created by someone using software to re-create effects of light.

Anyway, I can't possibly work on my novel when I'm worked up about my kitchen. I have only three to six months to decide.

2010-09-27T11:49:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Why would you personalize your skin?"

What I'm reading: Good Fairies of New York

Vista killed my laptop. I am sad. Not only do I miss my laptop, but I also couldn't save the 800-some words I wrote on my novel. I liked almost 100% of the words, particularly the order they were in, which was just about exactly how I wanted them. So, shucks.

A Changing Bill of Fare

2010-09-24T09:52:00.006-04:00

Quote of the Day: "The white powder accentuates the clown hair." Has anyone used the words "clown" and "hair" with you recently?!

1) Remember all those corridor credit hours I was accumulating toward some kind of Mom Olympic Medal or certificate of patience or something? I somehow thought I'd spend the rest of my life waiting in that dim, cracker-crumbed hallway of the ballet school, watching toddlers writhe in bored agony. But no. That's all behind me. My children no longer dance. It's weird.

2) My laptop could no longer take my verbal abuse and went into a hard-drive fetal position of recurrent whirring and stopping.

3) I could never go to nursing school, because they practice their inoculating and blood-drawing on each other. And in culinary school, or even to be a restaurant reviewer, you have to eat scary or strange things. Movie critics have to see movies they know they won't like.

I just joined a critique group, and like those cooking students, and movie reviewers, and nursing students, I must read stuff I would never choose to read. I have to read it carefully and consciously, and make notes on my every reaction to what I am reading.

In my usual writing group, this is easy. I know the members really well, and I love their writing. But this new group is, well, new, and I'm taking a kind of professional pride in taking a big heap of blowfish sushi and savoring its nuances.

QOTD Book Club Day!

2010-09-21T09:24:00.013-04:00

Quote of the Day: tba

Periodically here at Quote of the Day we review a literary work or reading passage. This month's work is entitled: Code of Conduct, by own very own school system. Already hailed as "required reading" for all parents, this work walks the line of bold authority with its customary conventionality. While timely in content and focused in its execution, this work receives 3 stars out of 5.

The narrative thread set up in the "letter from the superintendent" weakens early in the work. The authors stray from the main arc to expound upon the virtues of Positive Behavior Support; despite strong adjectives and sincere language, their argument, lacking specific data to support their claims (for example, the program's roots in special education with very specific, rather than general, applications) ultimately fails to persuade this reader.

Other sections use bullet-points, numbered lists, and charts to some effectiveness, but the accompanying text contains too much unnecessary verbiage to push through to this reader's imagination--phrases such as "are authorized to take measures aimed at ensuring that" rather than the more direct and powerful "have the authority to."

Once the document reaches sections on criminal activity, the language becomes more specific and succeeds in keeping the reader's interest, as in reading a mystery novel, to see what is said and what is left unsaid. It is a shame, really, that this document must be legally binding, at the cost of accessibility to most readers. Its important message is likely lost in its formal tone, whimpering around with extraneous phrases and passive voice constructions. It tries too hard to sound authoritian with big words. In fact, strong language implies strength.

For a more compelling read, this reviewer recommends other works by the same author, such as "Urgent: Inclement Weather Plan" or "Message 404: Delayed Opening."

2010-09-21T09:01:00.005-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Those aren't statues, they're hedge people!"

It's confirmed: I can produce words all day long. Just not ideas. I'm going to take another shot at the novel today, though. All I have to do is crank out words!

Especially about houses. I watched "Love Actually" over the weekend, and it was okay. The premise was nice, particularly the airports-full-of-love part. But too much nudity, not enough kitchens-- gorgeous movie fantasy kitchens! Luscious countertops, well-hung pendant lighting, sultry appliances. Nancy Meyers understands the longing of this middle-aged female heart. Was there adult stuff going on in Something's Got to Give? All I remember is that hunky kitchen!

I need a movie rating system based on the quantity and quality of the cinematic kitchens, something like: "Love Actually"-- Plot 5 stars, Kitchens 1.5 stars.

2010-09-20T10:37:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Would you also follow the beaver?"

These words, written on a sticky note at the bottom of my "Idea Box," are but one example of the kind of non-ideas that I've stuck into my idea box. The original idea was to store story ideas (sorry-- vocabulary running in circles) for times like now, times when the big novel idea no longer resembles an interesting topic. I can write fanatically for half an hour about houses, but two sentences in on my mouldy old novel and I suddenly have to sharpen pencils.

The idea box is a silt-deposit of desk quirks:

the above-mentioned, in my daughter's handwriting, probably once a discussion topic for a Narnia book

a calligraphy practice that reads "the most important thing you leave behind is the stuff that turns into treasures when children find it"-- which, every time I read it, for some reason makes me think of silver-plated spoons

the idea for the current book which says only "Historical fiction-- Roman civ. cave canem" (cave means beware, so I should have known then it wasn't going to work out)

a torn corner that reads only "Please Make Up My Stateroom"

inscrutable drawings by my son as a toddler

a Wendell Berry quote too long for me to read, much less type here

my daughter's to-do list

a phone list from 2007, and

a squashed paper airplane.

I suppose in the write mental state, any of these might actually spur some good writing. I might be having one of those days, mentally, that you sometimes get when, even though you have lots of pretty clothes, decide to wear the saggy t-shirt with the giant stain on it.

I'm going to blindly grab one thing from that box and write 1000 words about it. I'll report on my progress tomorrow.

2010-09-17T08:37:00.005-04:00

Quote of the Day: "That's an off-shore email account."

What I'm reading: Finished Hard Times. The ending felt anti-climactic to me-- but maybe I was rushing through it. I can't seem to stick with reading the dialogue with a character with a lisp, for example. All those th's where they don't belong. Yikes.

So, my second cat is a terrible roommate, the kind you would turn in if you had to share a dorm with him. He eats other people's food in the middle of the night and leaves the mess out. He has questionable hygiene. He sticks his nose in other people's business. He stands on the counter. (Okay, this last one may not represent a lot of bad human roommates out there. But still.)

He's exposing my slackness, and that is unpardonable!

2010-09-09T10:33:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I figured I had wine so I might as well get bananas."

What I'm reading: Hard Times. Awesome.

Hard times for me-- the skin cancer treatment on my nose is uncomfortable and repulsive; and my dog snarled and nipped at young children at the bus stop. Even though I was mad at him all the walk back home, I know I'm to blame, really, for not watching him more closely. He's just not a good dog for children, though he's better than he used to be. It just sucks. He was the bad dog, but I'm the one who feels like I just received a whack on the snout with a newspaper.

Wire We Here

2010-09-03T08:13:00.005-04:00

Quote of the Day: "There are the compliant deer."

What I'm reading: Hard Times.

At a stoplight near home this morning, I noticed a crazy interlacing of wires over the intersection-- practically a potholder of parallel wires, supporting perpendicular swags of cables connected to a Z of coiled lines. It struck me as excessive and ugly. How pretty towns must have been before electrical wires!

In New Jersey, we saw a town with an extra wire overhead around the town. Apparently, the Jewish eruv allows the concept of home to extend to a community's border, so that on the sabbath people can carry things like keys or small, immobile children. Practical and nicely symbolic, all in one.

On Weaver Street, wires cross, cars pass, people walk, some while talking on cell phones, and in our modern, unorthodox way, these wires of cotidian techology delimit our home, too.

2010-08-26T08:31:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Your eco-friendly sticker just ruined my notebook."

What I'm reading: Hard Times. Perfect for the start of school. Facts!

What have been complaining about August for, all these years? The heat, the humidity, school, dreary dregs of summer, blah, blah, blah... Well, I was crazy!

August means shelled peas, figs, muscadine and scuppernog grapes! I can eat a half-pint of scuppernogs in one sitting. It might be a little extreme, my love for them. I'm not sure I can stop anytime. But so far they're not interfering with my personal life. Even if the farmers' market farmer knows us by sight and gives us a discount on grapes because we're "good customers."

Ah, August, the final triumph of summer, before all we're left with is acorn squash and potatoes!

2010-08-20T13:22:00.006-04:00

Quote of the Day: "It really does all come back to cows."
(Thanks, Andy!)

What I'm reading: Damsel in Distress, by PG Wodehouse.

How, you may ask, particularly if you haven't spoken with me in the past week or so, does one become a Latin teacher-type, the kind of person who loves the rigor and order and discipline of Latin grammar, combined with the organic fluidity of language and the intricate mysteries of ancient culture? I'm glad you asked!

In my case, it started when somehow I, a humanities-minded girl, was born into a family of scienticey-computer-analyst-engineering people. In my room I had a record player and some dolls, but at least 80% of the toys in our house belonged to my brothers (even if you factor out the duplication, because oddly enough, my brothers, less than a year apart, always got two of everything). Erector sets, tinker toys, blocks, matchbox cars, Legos, model airplanes, semaphore posters, and Tonka trucks filled my brothers' rooms and spilled into the hallway. I couldn't have avoided them if I'd tried.

So, I was warped. I grew up, always placing into advanced math classes even though I cannot, in fact, reckon my way out of a paper bag (intriguing scenario, note to self), and playing piano inaccurately but determinedly, and thus stumbled into Latin.

As a mother I'm constantly surprised that my children have no interest in blocks or Legos, unless it's to create a puppet show theatre or a wardrobe for paper dolls' clothes (true.) Somehow I find myself in a humanities family, and I'm still a weird crossbreed.

Tapping an Old Root

2010-08-16T08:33:00.008-04:00

Quote of the Day: none. Come on people. Throw some language around, preferably in my presence.
I have a runner-up kind of qotd, "Being bad enough to have a social life." The true test of a qotd is whether it would confuse a non-native speaker when translating, but that sentiment surfaces in ancient literature (Enkidu!) for heavensake, so it's just a runner-up.

What I'm reading: Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, at first intended as read-aloud to my children. But when their attention wandered and they started reading other books while I was still reading aloud, I read it to myself instead, so there.

I went to a prompts class on Saturday, to start getting back into writing shape. The first prompt generated lots of ideas, which are like energy-drink for the writing mind. But the read-aloud format generated a useless story for the second prompt. I have no use for it anywhere else, so I'm going to impose it upon you now.

The prompt: an item from the police blotter, in which police stopped a man at 9:45am Sunday morning who was taking wood from a fallen tree at Anderson Park for use in his woodstove. Officers informed the man that the trees of the park were town-owned and could not be taken for personal use.

As cursed as the inmates of Tartarus must I be this cold Massachusetts winder. I have long labored to create a life of thought and purpose without resort to petty neighbor concerns. For who better for neighbors than birds that work and sing in concert?

So I sought, here by this pond, to demand nothing of others, nor to be burdened by them, but only to take my time to resolve where one's duty as citizen and neighbor may indeed coincide with one's own purpose, like Atropos, the Fate that cannot be turned aside.

Yet here, even in these woods, and a taxpayer still, have I been nearly arrested for my efforts. They claim trees are town-owned, and cannot be claimed for heat. Trees that by their very longevity on this earth, predating our own births by generations and able to succeed us in our last breaths, and thus cannot be owned, truly, by men of so brief a span.

I would have argued this, and more, but for a team of child athletes on their way to some sporting endeavor. Their progress was noisome and vigorous, and I could not make myself heard.

Moreover the officers, standing at postures of some restlessness, shifting from foot to foot, referring to their equipment too often for necessity, distracted me from my discourse.

Then, too, the barking of a score of dogs nearby contributed to the din. Though winter, and the hunting season now past, yet younger members of the citizenry had brought together dogs of sundry breed and character-- for purposes I know not nor was likely ever to comprehend, as they seemed not likely to gain their end.

So I find my hope of independence and freedom impossible to attain. Perhaps 'twould serve as well to remove home to Concord, and thus to pick my poison thereby.

Why the Cream Puff?

2010-08-02T10:28:00.006-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Cat toys are always the conundrum."
Thursday's qotd was from my son, commenting on his new lenses. He has a poetic way with words.

What I'm reading: Dave Barry's I'll Mature When I'm Dead. Funny funny funny.

Yesterday the elder daughter and I made cream puffs from scratch-- a seven-hour project that paid off in the end. But we kept asking each other, How did the French have the time to create this baking cuisine?

Were they like, here's all this butter, we'd better knead and fold it into flour and let it rest and then knead and fold it again and then bake it and wait and meanwhile create cream to fill this airy bread, and add a few more tricky steps? Were they trying to avoid doing something else-- "Sorry, Pierre, I'd love to help you with your warfare/ dental work/ taxes, but I've got to finish this pastry project"--?

In other countries, like Afghanistan, say, they focused on one dish, the kabob, and perfected it, and then went back to whatever. They don't seem to have developed a whole cuisine. Maybe they were more like, "Eh, let's get back to warfare. Less washing up."

A Small Sample

2010-07-29T13:36:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "They're as clear as a drink of water."

What I'm reading: started The Totally Tragic Something Hamlet but it was total crap so I quit.

I'm currently wearing a band-aid on my nose. Among my age set, it's a familiar sight, like braces to middle-schoolers. This band-aid might as well say, "I went to the Dermatologist and all I got was this lousy band-aid. And hole in my nose." Even if it is a tiny, pen-point sized scrape from the nose, it still hurts like hell.

I used to think a great bad name would be Concrete, or Quarantine. Wouldn't those make great bad names? My new number one candidate, though, is, Biopsy.

2010-07-28T08:51:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I want to get my hopes up!"

What I'm reading: Time to hit the library.

I'm on day three of clearing the area around my desk. Yesterday I finished sorting and purging through all my teaching stuff. At the end I kinda had to squeeze stuff in, but I did fit every worksheet, reading, test, worksheet, evaluation, and essay topic into one file box. And once I closed the lid on it, I stopped dreaming about teaching-- annoying dreams about how sad it was I wasn't teaching.

So instead, last night I dreamed I was the young Sophia Loren! Better, right? Even if probably only because I was all twisted in the sheets like one of those crazy Edith Head dresses.

2010-07-23T09:52:00.005-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I know how to speak Joe."

What I'm reading: Just finished First Light and When You Reach Me, both by Rebecca Stead, both good. When You Reach Me is closely tied to A Wrinkle in Time.

I suspect my daughter of poll-fraud. There's no way six people read this blog.

But I've gone ahead and re-organized the Sources list by quantity, and I'll try out posting the context of qotd's on the following day.

So, "Face your back to me" was what my son said to my daughter, to illustrate what he meant by "Today in science camp we did massages all day." The he did chop-chop motions on her back. Dinner time is lively in our home.

2010-07-16T17:27:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "You should treat your pancake with more respect." Frankly, does the context matter? People, these are words to live by.

What I'm reading: Unclutter Your Life in One Week. Between Razing and Raising is a whole lot of mess. So I haven't made it to the computer much this week. The prospect of moving out so we can get our house worked on (it seems to be back on the table, though short of paperboard cut-outs of a new kitchen propped up against the wall, I'm not sure what part of this renovation we can actually afford) is totally freaking me out.

Please talk amongst yourselves about unique uses of language you heard this week, squabble about who's more awesome, and so forth. I'll be back on track soon!

Post Scriptum

2010-07-12T21:22:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Face your back to me."

What I'm reading: Great Expectations (it's a long book, and I've little time to read.)

Sorry to be so late in posting! I had a whole post planned for today about... about.. yes, about the fearlessness one acquires over the course of renting places, and having to clean out other people's grim and goo before settling in comfortably. And about how much easier it has made motherhood for me, that I developed that fearlessness in the face of grossness, to face the varied ickiness that accompanies caring for children and pets.

It was going to be clever and yet really make you think and pride yourself on your own ruthlessnesses that experience has brought you. Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow.

From the Mouths of Babes

2010-07-09T13:50:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I spat my song out." (Has this, in fact, been said before? In this case, the context, toothpaste and humming, made it interesting to me.)

What I'm reading: Great Expectations, favorite line from which: "...for we think the feelings that are very serious in a man quite comical in a boy"-- never have I felt compelled to write in a book until I read that line. I know lots of cool people who just have to write in books while they read, and though I wanted to be that cool, I just never did. Until I read that line, and Had to annotate.

What did I write? Exactly the word that made me snort with scorn whenever I saw other people's margin notes. Just one word to remind myself of the appreciation I felt when I read that line, and really, the best possible thing a reader can think, actually: "True."

Binding

2010-07-08T09:03:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: pending.

What I'm reading: Great Expectations.

Like the new blog backdrop? Reminds me of what my bookshelf will be like in 5-10 years if I do not stop buying blank books. (I assume it's a backdrop of blank books. None of the books have titles.)

Law of the Line

2010-07-07T15:42:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Teachers don't earn clues."

What I'm reading: Great Expectations. Sad to say, I find I am not Pip, I am not Estella, I am not the Aged P. Today I resemble Mrs. Joe Gargery, slamming around the house cleaning for five hours. Sad.

Today, at 8:30am, I furtively hung my laundry on racks on our deck. Our neighborhood covenant forbids clotheslines, so I am aware that I am skirting the law on a technicality. I worry that our next-door neighbors will object, so I position the racks as far out of the line of sight of their house as possible. I am an outlaw. But when laundry lines are outlawed, only outlaws will have laundry lines.

Setting up Shop, Continued

2010-07-06T10:04:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: none. Lamentable.

What I'm reading. Still Great Expectations and Enchanted Glass, though we're closing in on the finale of the latter. It's good!

Went back and fixed up my Twitter account, in the hopes that someday my writer friends and I can kind of conference-twit about writing-- "my MC wants a mohawk and I don't know what to do" or "I'm meeting this author tonight, any ideas for questions to ask him?"-- except that my neither of my writer friends are on Twitter.

In the meantime, I have enjoyed the tweets of various self-styled variations on Justin Bieber, their thoughts on whether or not it would be a hilarious prank for all icons to switch to fruit today. Or something else.

Pardon the Inconvenience!

2010-07-05T10:04:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: Pending. I mean, it's early.

What I'm reading: Enchanted Glass, Great Expectations

I'm trying to get the blog back up and running. I'm a bit rusty after a year of not writing. So, sorry in advance, for all the crap about to be posted here. Our summer motto shall be: The crap's not going to just write itself!

Quotidian Courage

2010-06-19T18:11:00.005-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Ah, yawnage."
What I am reading: Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones; and Great Expectations

I quit the day job—which was, in reality, a day-nights-and-weekends job. I had no time for laundry or cooking, much less my children or writing. My husband took it all on, finally, with a graciousness I continue to bless him for.

I was successfully unemployed for ten years, and while it's a profound relief and joy to return home, I want to be careful to do a better job this time at working at home.

Lots of tasks come easily—cleaning, baking. But connecting to the outside world was always a bit of a weak spot. Like making appointments, or-- worse-- putting stamps on letters, recycling, calling people. I'm maybe not so strong on the follow-through.

I know a woman who does everything perfectly. Her house is straight and clean, her dryer empty, her children polite, birthday cards sent early, everything prompt and thoughtful.

And I realize that this woman is fearless. She has the unflinching courage to do things well, to plan ahead and think things through. Plus she has a good sense of humor.

So I re-enter the non-workforce with a determination to be fearless in the face of procrastination and introversion. I already have joy and relief on my side.

Seasonings

2010-04-25T22:21:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I'm learning a lot of rules about the pantry!"

What I'm reading: Just finished Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, and Sweet Life by Lynne York. Am reading Castle in the Air by DWJ to my daughter at bedtime, and working on through Eye of the World fifteen minutes.

Up next: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (or thereabouts; Enchanted Glass (DWJ newest); and Somebody Fink possibly. Have heard a recommendation for a thriller called Heresy that influenced its reader to use "thieve" in casual conversation, so you know I'm going to have to check that out.

I used to look forward to the changing of seasons-- flowers, sunshine, autumn leaves, fireplaces and evergreens. But now I just recognize it as a change of nuisances. We are leaving cold and flu season and entering allergy and tick season. Then it'll be mosquitoes and sunburns. That's adulthood for you-- the magic ain't what it was.

I'm going to realign my thinking, though. Any other sort of yardstick would do, one that makes you happy-- clothes maybe. For me, the best one so far involves baking. So, we've left good bread baking season and entered cookies and cakes season. The nice thing about cookies and cake season is it's one of your longer time periods, one we can coast on right up to quick breads (pumpkin, banana, etc) season in the fall.

I've made two batches of chocolate chip, and one of snickerdoodles, plus one chocolate layer cake. 'Tis the season, after all.

Just a Quote

2010-04-05T20:12:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "You missed some off-the-chain organ playing."
What I'm reading: ???

Supercilious Comes from the Latin Word for Eyebrow

2010-03-13T18:07:00.003-05:00

Quote of the Day: "Mine's going to have hamster overhairs."

What I'm reading: The Help. Slog, slog. (But you can still totally have it when I'm done, Reader 1!)

Quiet Saturday. Became Dark Overlord of Housekeeping in the morning; morphed into Mary Poppins and merrily took the children shopping for books in the afternoon; and now I'm back to my harmless pre-work self, enjoying being home.

Good, with Chaotic Tendencies

2010-03-05T11:56:00.004-05:00

Quote of the Day: "This is no time for sparkles."

What I'm reading: slogging through The Help. Next up, Suite Francaise, as determined by new book group. If you want a better book on both the indignities of housecleaning and complexities of race, I'd recommend Nancy Peacock's books-- A Broom of One's Own and Home Across the Road-- over the media-machine driven The Help, which isn't good enough.

But then, keeping house taps into my deepest feelings of power and control. Since I began working, I have had to relinquish those tasks which gave order-- my order-- to the dimension of reality that is our home. Last weekend, as I searched for things helplessly in cabinets and closets, as I stepped over coats and boots, as I picked my way through halls crowded with abandoned magazines, discarded clothes, and toppled piles, those sublimated frustrations culminated at last in my becoming a kind of Sauron-housewife, the dark overlord of household management.

I wanted everyone to yield to me and my vision, not of the entropy of children and pets, but of structure and control: of an alphabetized spice drawer; of a pantry, labeled and sorted, with older items in front and newer in back; of rags sorted by color and type and distributed under sinks across the house; and of a floor, vacuumed daily and mopped weekly! This, yes, this and more, more! Beds made, rooms aired, errands run upon their prescribed day of the week!

And as I expounded my vision to my minion family members, the more I saw them shrink from me. However, though powerful, I am but one, and in the end, their fellowship conquered me, and I slinked away, grumbling and plotting, defeated, but not vanquished. For I shall plant among them, like the one true ring-- the family calendar, perhaps, that binds them all-- and they will not be able to resist it....

January: a List

2010-01-07T22:26:00.004-05:00

Quote of the Day: "I procrastinate on the fruit."

What I'm reading: Mother Tongue: English and How It Got that Way
Bill Bryson's work teems with charm, though he seems to stop short of primary research. It irks when I recognize the examples he uses, lifted from books I also have read.

What can I say? It's January, and therefore not a new year but a half-way point, an exciting one that will soon bring the end of the semester. I like to change things up, even when they're going well.

Good things about January:
low tick threat
good sleeping weather
complements strong black coffee
suitable for cashmere
no shorts
perfectly acceptable to spend Saturday on the couch reading
no decorating pressure
increasing minutes of daylight
taxes not due yet
that last one was actually kind of depressing.
January is kind of one big "yet" with a heavy dash of "no more."

2009-12-29T21:15:00.002-05:00

Quote of the Day: "I'm holding your leg for safe-keeping."

What I'm reading: Eye of Time. Or Wheel. Anyway, it's blue and charming. Also reading Mother Tongue: English and How It Got that Way, especially interesting about spelling and pronunciation, but slower in the dialects part. I've never heard any Southerner call a grocery bag a poke, though I have heard the cart referred to as a buggy.

2009-12-21T12:19:00.002-05:00

Quote of the Day: "Next year I'll go back to the lobster."

What I'm reading: whatever's handy: Phineas something by Frances O'Rourke Dowell, Fast Food Nation, Homeward Bounders, and Mother Tongue: Something something English language (Bill Bryson).

Around Day 4 I finished lighting the trees by dint of shoving all wires, regardless of similar colors too close together, spacing, etc-- I have as many rules for lighting a Christmas tree as the Greeks had for constructing temples-- back towards the trunk. This always works, but only if I've spent three days beforehand, running through my full complement of expostulations, imprecations, swearing, and cursing while hopelessly tangling the wires of lights so much that in January I will have to clip branches off the tree to extricate the lights at all.

As a kind of cross-training, I switch between decorating frustrations to thank-you note writing, which involves nearly as much structure and stricture as the tree (and Greek temples.) Soon I'll launch into Christmas cards. Possibly on Thursday, next week.

Tonight is Solstice, so I look forward to eating cookies and writing poems by the fire with my family. When the sun stands still, we take a quiet break, too, before the sun swings around and every day gains another minute of daylight.

Scout-- AKA Explorador!

2009-12-01T18:08:00.002-05:00

Quote of the Day: "Ink means think." My colleague made this comment when he walked into our shared classroom and saw the sheer volume of writing on the board. I was teaching up a storm, I suppose.

What I'm reading: Dark Lord of Derkholm, a re-read. Need a new book!

We were watching Buena Vista Social Club recently when I saw a dog in the movie that looked just like Scout trot across a Havana street! NO dogs look like Scout. I would have said he was an original, a unique specimen not to be found anywhere else. I asked my husband to corroborate that indeed the two dogs were quite similar. With some reservation, he concurred.

Well, it's obvious: I could only conclude that our dog, Scout, is, in fact, Cuban. This is why he seldom obeys our commands, you see. He is a Spanish-language dog.

I tested my theory and said to him, "Hola, perro" which is nearly all the Spanish I know. His ears pricked up-- yes, up, as if to say, "Finally, these people are speaking my language," instead of the head-tilt one might have expected. Then, squandering the last of my Spanish knowledge, I said to him, "Te quiero, Explorador," to which he lowered his ears and wagged his tail.

So there you have it. Our contraband dog habla Espanol!

2009-11-11T18:04:00.004-05:00

Quote of the Day: "It's the fluff ball of death."

What I'm reading: Metmorphoses, by Ovid. What I love about Ovid is his total style. He is just crazy about Latin, and he knows he's hot stuff. He does some fancy work with the sensible, structured Latin language. Latin is like math, but with a better narrative.

We used to joke in grad school that classics education prepares you for naming cars, after flaming rivers of the underworld, or evil brother's of ancient kings-- and indeed, if I could buy a mini-van named "Phlegethon," possibly with flame detail on the side, I know I would feel better about driving one. Or "Echidna" for the half-snake half-woman mother of many, many Greek monsters.

2009-11-10T19:51:00.002-05:00

Quote of the Day: "That would make a good title: The Power of the Snout."

What I'm reading: Was reading The Last Olympian, until I realized I had already read it. I have no time for forgettable books. It's rainy out, and chilly, and I really long for a good book to read in bed, my toes snuggled into a hot rice sock and my comforter all fluffed up.

I had to change my NaNoWriMo information, since I'm not writing the same book I wrote last November. Ha ha, of course not; that would be cheating and pathetic. So then I heard this quote today, so I entered that as my new working title. I meant to click the genre as "Satire/Parody" but hit "Romance" by accident.

TELL ME you don't want to read a romance entitled "The Power of the Snout." Of course you do. It's all intrigue, a title like that in a genre like Romance. I'll just give you a hint: it's about a man, a woman, and a shared destiny with a powerful snout. I've already got 6000 words!

2009-10-04T14:39:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "After bus duty what is there?"

What I'm reading: Who Will Save the Frog Hospital

In fact, I have bus duty next week. Hoping for good weather.

NaNoWriMo found me yesterday-- I received an email from a local organizer. There's no way I can write 50K words in one month full of work and holidays. On the other hand, my cat won't go into heat this time around. Boy, was that distracting.

2009-09-29T22:35:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "At 42, it's virtually impossible to pass myself off as a 6-year-old Inuit."

What I'm reading: Re-read some Diana Wynne Jones short stories, and read River Secrets by Shannon Hale which was good by modern YA standards. Read The Odyssey (translation by Robert Fitzgerald) in one sitting during the rainy Saturday. There's a great book!

Get this: I am enrolled in a monthly creative writing class through the school system for CEUs! I looked forward to it all day. Just taking a class with Carol Henderson is exciting. She leads with creativity and sensitivity. FUN! I wrote three things that never existed before. I don't know what other people do to feel so happy. This worked for me.

2009-09-13T21:40:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Everything's good with crowns."

What I'm reading: Shell Seekers. Still. Possibly forever. Which would be depressing.

It appears my blog has devolved into a sibling-backtalk forum. I shall now recuse myself from any posting of tallies or comments.

My Corridor Credit Hours have greatly diminished since I started back to work and my eldest quit ballet and the ballet school forbids staying to watch the class. Things just aren't the same as in the old days at ballet when the Cadillac SUV moms swapped derogatory stories of contractors and stone masons working on their second homes, while their toddlers licked residual goldfish crumbs off the carpet. Those were the days. Nor do I spend much time waiting anywhere. I'm dashing, always dashing from one place to the next. I don't even make a single bun. Younger daughter makes her own.

I think I've left Walden for good. I thought it would be right there, to visit in the margins of my day, but as I look back, it's already out of sight, fragile and sweet and utterly lost to me.

2009-09-09T21:26:00.005-04:00

Quote of the Day: "'Rote' for beginners!"

What I'm reading: Shell Seekers. Wearying selfish main characters.

The next guide I write shall be a sort of field guide to children. It'll take some research, no doubt about it, but by the end I'll have a tidy compendium of all the sorts of children you might encounter out in nature.

For example, the future engineer is a well-recognized species, the kid who takes things apart and puts other things together, but rarely are these the same things. Or the future lawyer, who debates with uncanny precision the logic behind, say, your decision to serve rice with dinner instead of mac 'n' cheese.

I would like one for identifying my own children, to help put into perspective their odd and often bewildering ways, and turn my tolerance or frustration into the patience and nurturing I'm supposed to provide if only they weren't so weird!

Of course I love their quirks the best. They are really quite good company much of the time. But wouldn't it be cool if some of their dominant traits gave a glimpse to the future? I mean, beyond the standard, If you don't make your bed every day, you'll end up in a life of crime?

2009-09-03T17:47:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "This is going to be as mind-scarring as I can make it."

What I'm reading: Shell Seekers. Not so bad.

Atropos, the Fate that cannot be turned aside, whom we all now know well because of Thoreau (or maybe there are other sources, like Greek ones. Whatevs.) is the Fate that snips the thread of one's life. So, you know, be careful out there.

Which is faster, nicer, and more cost-effective: the mega copier that breaks down daily and requires much bewildered opening of doors, pulling of levers, and removing of jammed paper (not to mention piling of participles) or an ascetic monk making copies in flowing ink?

2009-09-02T17:07:00.001-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I get it. The theme is "Do more, get less."

I cannot write whilst I hold down a job. Every day is wearying and dispiriting.

2009-08-25T16:53:00.000-04:00

Quote of the Day:

What I'm reading: Introvert Power

After six days of planning, day one of school is over. I really should have spent more time planning day two.

2009-08-22T21:04:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Like the Navy seals of the library."

What I'm reading: Introvert Power.

The benefit of vacuuming extends beyond a clean floor. When I'm home cleaning, I'm not out losing time and money. Plus I'm home, which is a benefit right there. I love home! Even if someone else came in and did all the housework, I could stay home for a year and not run out of things to do. Actually, I practically did this for eight or nine months between 1992 and 1993, and while I wouldn't call it a golden era, exactly, I did come out of it with several excellent mix tapes and enough crossword puzzle experience to acquire a working knowledge of Swiss cantons and months of the Hebrew calendar.

Today I went shopping with my 11 year old, and while I loved spending time with her, mall-hopping is totally exhausting. In fact, I'd say it kinda sucks.

2009-08-19T21:30:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Technology is a wonderful theory."

What I'm reading: nothing fun, though it seems like I got a good recommendation recently.

Dear Readers, I have reported back to work, so any hopes you might have had of blog posts like On Walden, Fond or Guide to Tar Hell Country are hereby dashed. Kind of like my writing aspirations.

On the bright side, the numbers of students enrolled in my classes DOUBLED from last year. It can't be just all those movies I showed in class, right?

Bridging the Communication Gap

2009-08-14T23:25:00.006-04:00

Quote of the Day: "You can do a lot with a rubber mallet."

What I'm reading: Introduction to Viking Mythology, and the like, in suppressed panic over the beginning of school.

What I wish I were reading: Some new book by Nick Hornby. Come on, Nick!

You know how (or maybe you didn't) this blog is kind of predicated on the idea that even though the meanings of words seem static, the combinations are nearly endless, and often (finally getting to the point) unorthodox, and yet still convey meaning?

Turns out, I was wrong about that, a little, which I realized when yet again scanning the bridge game sportscast under the crossword puzzle in the newspaper today, in my ever-thwarted curiosity about the game.

I know the meanings of all those words: trick, fourth, lead, hand, suit. I understand the basic subject-predicate construction. I even detect the judgmental tone-- "He can cash a the heart ace" and "West presumably knew to lead with his second weakest suit"-- Yet still I have no idea what even one of those sentences mean. (Wouldn't it be funny if "suit" meant an actual suit? Like, sartorial low-balling? Ha ha ha! But no. Bridge is serious business.)

Thanks to my current reading, though, I can think smugly to myself as I fold the paper closed, that I know that the origin of the words North, South, East and West come from Viking mythology. Leading with my second weakest suit!

2009-08-05T10:14:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I need you to help me throw away a sweater."

What I'm reading: Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher, upon the insistence of friends, to encourage me to write.

It saddens me that ancient cultures, and even more recent societies, did not have the vacuum cleaner, not only because it cleans dirt and dust quickly and thoroughly, but also because of the dear game of threatening to suck up a little kid's feet (though not a toddler's, as that is too scary.) The appeal of this game must be universal, and I could really see, like, the Minoans, or the Celts, really getting into it.

2009-07-29T15:10:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "My name is vulture and a foot."

As sometimes happens, ants are invading our home. Out front, a busy two-lane line of them hastens between cracks in the bricks, and they wind up chiefly in the upstairs hall bathroom. They are not very organized there. They just wander around, checking out the shampoo bottles, the bath toys in the metal basket, the tooth paste blobs in the sink, occasionally bumping into each other, or running afoul of the business end of a shoe.

In other places and times, the ants honed in on a source, such as, once, a fresh-baked batch of madeleines (which I have never made since, after the sight of ants swarming over them.) They had a mission, a purpose. This current batch of ants are just sight-seers, tourists, aimlessly violating our privacy for their formicular amusement.

I guess everyone's on summer vacation!

2009-07-27T09:40:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "If I were stuck on a dessert island, all I would take is a fork."

What I'm reading: 1. Dragonhaven--almost done, despite the irritating narrative voice. The wordy indulgent style badly dilutes some very cool ideas and slows the action. 2. Stopping for a Spell-- Chair Person, not a sentence wasted, very refreshing. 3. Introvert Power. 4. various books about Celts, Norse mythology, Greeks, and Romans.

You wouldn't think I had time for anything else, looking at that list, and indeed I have of late accomplished very little.

2009-07-17T14:08:00.001-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I am magnanimous in my linguistic accrediting."

What I'm reading: Dragonhaven. Get used to it.

Peter, please send me a writing assignment!

2009-07-15T11:53:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Prepare to be hilarisized!"

What I'm reading: Dragonhaven. Slow.

Did you know you could skip rocks at the ocean? I highly recommend it, if there aren't too many people in the water around you, of course. My husband-- pardon my pride-- has great rock-skipping skills, and can make a rock skip far and high. I myself achieved a few four- and five-skips, a lot of twos. I even inspired two teenaged boys down the beach to try skipping rocks, too (though it looked to me like they were applying too much force and not enough torque.)

It is like magic to employ physics in this frivolous manner, and a great way to work out that muscle running between the biceps that for years lay in easy obsurity, without any demands on it. I only know it exists now because it was moody and sore for days after. So, don't forget to stretch.

2009-07-11T22:45:00.006-04:00

Quote of the Day: "There was fun to be stolen at the tidal pool."

What I'm reading: Dragonhaven, by Robin McKinley. Theme park. Am vaguely disturbed by this apparent proliferation of theme park novels.

We have returned from a week at the beach. It was an excellent beach, geographically, which is something I care about-- I like a wide, shallow beach, with tidal pools where possible. It was a friendly beach, for sure. And yet, to quote Simon Winchester, and yet. All the other women-- college girls, young mothers, grandmothers-- wore bikinis. All the men had shaved heads and tattos.

It is a strange day when I can pick my husband out of a crowd by his long hair. Suddenly being "out there"-- countercultural and marginal-- merely requires wearing a black bathing suit halfway to my knees (true: it's a couple sizes too big, plus a white long-sleeved shirt over that) and avoiding the painful tattoo process. Why, I would find deciding on an image for the tattoo in itself prohibitively painful. There's the whole etiquette question, whether tattos are public or private-- can one stare? And why go through all that for a dragonfly on the ankle?

I asked my eldest brother this very question, and he suggested getting a sudoku puzzle tattoo instead. Brilliant!

2009-06-30T12:02:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "They're boring and we drink too much."
Such is the rivalry between the town's two retirement communities.

What I'm reading: Holy Smoke: the Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue. A delight-- it educates and amuses.

As we were touring one of the retirement communities last night, a resident asked if we were prospective buyers. My first reaction was to feel flattered that we looked like we could remotely afford it. That I might look of retirement age, though I am just turned 40, bothered me hardly at all. What I said was, "Gosh, I don't think I'm that grown-up yet." Proving, in fact, that I'm not.

2009-06-25T10:45:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "He chased away the cuteness."

As I continue to declutter the house, by which I mean disturb many uncategorizable items from their nesting places and mess up the open spaces of our home, I find buckets and buckets of contraband shells. When we go to the beach I say, "NO shells." We have no need to make our own sand at home, and yet this is the inevitable fate of the housebound shell. Here's a bucket of shells beside me, smelling as though possibly not all were uninhabited at time of collection and harbored some yet-living creatures now quite stinkily deceased. We are taking these shells back and releasing them to the sea. Like Vikings, kind of, minus the burning ships.

2009-06-24T10:40:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Oops, I was almost irritable."

What I am reading: Just finished Shannon Hale's Austenland, which I read because it, like my current w.i.p., is about a theme park. It's not like my fictional theme park at all. I like mine lots better, not least because my characters can think of something besides romance. They have inner resources. As I was reading, I thought, Wow, this main character really needs a hobby. You can imagine my relief when she found one. Hale's books for children are better.

2009-06-18T10:10:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "There was a black snake on the porch and I swept him off with a broom."

What I'm reading: The Farmer of Ham

Isn't the Philharmonic basically just a cover band?

It is summer and for me that means classical music, computer games, and air conditioning. Ah, memories of childhood!

2009-06-16T14:59:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "No one likes a laser in their face."

What I'm reading: odds and ends. Mostly I am spending every waking moment cleaning. I've done half the closet, a fraction of my bedroom, and the center of my son's room. So, not great success so far, and no time for reading.

I sure don't know why I had to be born into this modern era. Heck, I shouldn't even have been born in this country. I am totally not a New World kind of gal. None of this exploration-conquistador-colonialist adventure stuff for me. I'm much more suited to the era when people packed up and drove four miles to visit friends for a month. I can stay home like it's an Olympic event. I do like women's rights though. That part makes up for the rest.

2009-06-09T21:29:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Did you see the guy with discus arms?"

What I'm reading: Yikes! I had to give back Last Olympian before I'd finished reading. Looks like I'm bookless! How can I go to bed without a book?

Just sad to say goodbye to my students. Four months may be the perfect school year length.

2009-05-29T18:49:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Life is better with socks."

What I'm reading: Four Corners of the Sky AND The Last Olympian, which a generous and kind student lent me today. A+!

How will I fit all the reading, writing, traveling, and playing with children I'm waiting to do, in two little months' time?

2009-05-27T10:26:00.000-04:00

Quote of the Day:

What I'm reading: Four Corners of the Sky

I finally make a fashion statement. Unfortunately, that statement is: "I have a cat."

2009-05-25T11:40:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day:

What I'm reading: Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone (my autographed copy!)

Wow, I had no idea that mom-bloggers were so a) ubiquitous and b) influential. I mean, I always thought of myself more as a slacker-writer-blogger, and now I see that it's better that way. Those high-powered mom-bloggers would kick me out.

Here I was, just wasting internet space with writing warm ups, giving my three readers something amusing to read at work, and giving vent to my odd and idiosyncratic thoughts on Thoreau and weird word combinations that pass for language. I didn't know other women out there were setting standards and weilding power and so forth. I didn't know people would send me free stuff!

2009-05-24T10:27:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Silence your ntses."

What I'm reading: Just finished House of Many Ways.

I don't know why I demur at writing nonfiction so much, when I seem to derive great pleasure in my job from writing Latin sentences. I don't even really believe in fake Latin. As soon as possible (quam primum) students should read original Latin sentences (sententiae antiquae).

It's like my personal Sudoku, to take 5 Latin verbs from chapter 10, say, and 7 nouns from chapters 8 and 9 and come up with maybe twenty logical sentences involving half a dozen grammatical constructions. Poets say that the lucky women receive many gifts. The leader says that he does not trust the women. The consuls believe that the brave citizens ought to preserve the peace. The strong animals will carry the weapons. And so on.

For this I shirk my writing career?

2009-05-23T15:37:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "How come they get bibo and we don't?!"

What I'm reading: old National Latin Exams.

My dog, in accordance with others of his breed, is loyal and obedient. He takes his job very seriously and raises the alarm whenever the kind of soulless malevolent person who would ring a doorbell comes to our house, or, nearly as bad, people who knock on doors. I made the mistake of saying to my husband (we talk about our dog more than anything) that while Scout is a good dog, it's not like he's loaded with talent. My husband fired up in defense of Scout, accusing me of not taking the time to play with Scout and see all the amazing things he's capable of. I'm not one to go up against a Chapel Hill parent, so I state for the record that our dog is above average, if not above above average.

2009-05-16T13:09:00.003-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I don't get English, I just talk it."

What I'm reading: Eight Days of Luke

If, as Joseph Campbell contends, the God of the United States is Reason-- the in God we trust of the 18th century French philosophy-- then the end of grade exams are a state religious ritual, not really any less valid than augury or rain dances were in their culture.

For anyone to place total confidence in these tests, which are after all constructs by people, irrational and imperfect, to measure the intellectual achievement of people, likewise irrational and unmeasurably complex, each in his or her own way, requires as much blind faith and belief as any other humanly constructed ritual calculated to satisfy what is ultimately an unsatisfiable need for control.

They might as well drill holes in our heads to let the demons out and pat themselves on the back when somehow we survive.

Plus EOGs are boring and make everyone petulant and querulous. Maybe like me now. Sorry. Funny pet stories next time, I promise!

2009-05-10T18:41:00.002-04:00

Quote of the Day: "I always wanted to shoot fire from my hands."
What I'm reading: On Fairy-Stories.

The new ICF's my husband installed over the house are worse than candles for dimness of light, yet without the advantage of casting a flattering glow. They are sickly and weak, with poison at their core. It would be better for the environment and my temper for me to sleep when it is dark and function with whatever light is available when it is day, and grope around in such light as is naturally available.

Say Cheese

2009-04-08T10:53:00.007-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Let's call our band the Strutting Ram Options."

What I'm reading: Corydon.

Here's how my kitchen now differs from when I was young, single, and childless.

Is it the princess thermos? No, I might have indulged in a princess thermos. Is it the collection of little plastic medicine cups? Maybe, but not quite. I could conceivably end up with a little medicine cup on my own.

It's the tiny cat tattoo sitting by the coffee mug. As far as I know, those tiny tattoos come only from little girl birthday goodie bags. And it's sitting here, like the Cheshire cat, emitting mystery and confusion.

The only thing weirder than having a cat head staring up at you when all you want is a cup of coffee, is perhaps a floating cat head on your little daughter's arm. That's too far out for my twenty-somethinged self to have handled, with or without the coffee.

Food for Thought

2009-03-28T10:08:00.005-04:00

Quote of the Day(week/ fortnight): "Do you want me to cut you a flock of flamingoes?"

What I'm reading: Power of Three, Corydor (haven't actually started but am supposed to. It's sitting right here, chiding me.)

"What is your favorite food?" I was stumped. The hospitality committee made me fill out a form with my birthday, hobbies, favorite candy, and favorite food. I was a week late turning it in because I couldn't answer that food question before my children turned the form into paper dolls.

I joined the hospitality committee with my $5 because I like the idea of the competent women in the office taking care of those important and thoughtful gestures that I suck at, like Remembering People's Birthdays, Sending Flowers, and so forth. I would like a hospitality committee for my own personal use. I excel at Remembering Birthdays Two Weeks Before and Then Blowing It When It Counts, as well as Composing in My Mind a Thoughtful Note Full of My Sincere Concern But Then Failing to Find Stationery or Stamps.

I really have a very severe Stamp problem. That's assuming I can find envelopes to fit my stationery.

But the Favorite Food question confounds me just as much. My favorite food? Summer field peas and a tomato sandwich. Boiled cabbage and fresh whole wheat biscuits. Egg McMuffins (my secret sin.) Truly though, none of those can get me out of a warm bed on a dark morning. My favorite food is probably coffee. In the end I put down "Mac 'n' Cheese" as least pompous or complicated, and yet true-- I like any kind, from the homemade kind to Boston Market to Kraft. Rice A Roni made a fine boxed version at one time.

Just this week I am eating chocolate around the clock, for medicinal purposes. Favorite food indeed! Who wants to know?

2009-03-18T20:13:00.004-04:00

Quote of the Day: "Everyone lip syncs eventually."

What I'm reading: Nickeled and Dimed, Corydor (an assignment from one of my students), and The Merlin Conspiracy. That is a long list of books for one 15-minute period of the day when I get to read.

What the day job has all over the writing at home gig is the possibility of conclusion. Within a day, I begin and finish five classes, not to mention worksheets, class games, tests, even grading. When it's done, it stays done. Unlike the laundry, the test grades, primly recorded in red ink in a tidy column, do not, over time, slide off the page, the way my daughters' piles of carefully sorted and folded clothes drift off their beds onto the floor, and sometimes straight into the hamper without ever reaching a drawer, or even a warm body.

Real life work is never done. The weeds spring up in the garden. The children need food-- and they just ate!

But in the artificial construct of my working world, I can start something and finish it more or less to my satisfaction, with more control than I exert on anything in nature. I can work fast, too. And then along comes a paycheck.

I do miss that 10:30am cup of tea and slice of buttered toast. I miss the slow pace of days. I'm banking on finding them again, like weeds in the garden.